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I received one of those scam emails today, this one was different. It claimed to be from Bank of America concerning to many login attempts on my online account and that I was to go to their link and update my security info, the big problem is I don't have a Bank of America account and this email is remarkably similar to ones I have received about e-bay accounts etc. This is a scam intended to rip people off after obtaining secure info from the customer dumb enough to actually go to the link. I need to report this and...

Obama's subprime pal PENNY PRITZKER Finance chief's bank failed in 2001, costing 1,400 customers some of their savings April 28, 2008 BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Political Reporter/apallasch@suntimes.com White House hopeful Barack Obama talks a lot on the campaign trail about how failing banks have used subprime loans to victimize customers. "Part of the reason we got a current mortgage crisis has to do with the fact that people got suckered in to loans that they could not pay," he told a crowd in Reading, Pa., last week. "There were a lot of predatory loans that were given out, a lot...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FALCON, Iraq, April 24, 2008 – Eight months ago, opening a bank in the Rashid district of southern Baghdad sounded like a good way to stir up trouble. Iraqi ladies become the first customers of the newly reopened Rashid Community Bank on April 20, 2008, in the Doura community of southern Baghdad. The bank is located a block from the renowned Doura Market, a center of commerce for many Iraqi residents. Photo by Army Spc. David Hodge, Multinational Division Baghdad  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Times have changed in the area, however, and local residents...

National City Corp. this morning announced details of its $7 billion bailout and said it lost $171 million, or 27 cents a share, in the first quarter. That was not as bad as the fourth quarter, when the Cleveland bank lost $333 million, but it was worse than last year's first quarter, when it had profits of $319 million. In a written statement, Ohio's largest bank said its board had finished details on a deal reached Sunday. As the Plain Dealer reported Sunday evening, National City is getting $7 billion of much-needed capital from the New York private equity firm...

Bank of America Corp , the second-largest U.S. bank, on Monday said quarterly profit fell 77 percent, hurt by more than $5 billion of write-downs and credit-related costs as more borrowers fell behind on payments. First-quarter net income fell to $1.21 billion, or 23 cents per share, from $5.26 billion, or $1.16, a year earlier. Excluding merger costs, profit was 26 cents per share, below the average analyst forecast of 45 cents, according to Reuters Estimates. Results included a $776 million gain from credit card network Visa Inc's initial public offering last month. Net revenue dropped 6 percent to $17...

Royal Bank of Scotland in fresh cash plea By Katherine Griffiths and Robert Winnett Last Updated: 11:12pm BST 17/04/2008 Britain's second biggest bank is to make a plea to the City to try to raise billions of pounds to help shore up its finances, which have been hit by the global credit crisis. The Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns NatWest, is to launch a rights issue for at least £5 billion. The move by RBS could lead to pressure on Sir Fred Goodwin to step aside as chief executive It is the first major British bank to concede that...

Investors sometimes get excited by bad news just because it isn't as bad as it could have been. Wednesday's profit slide at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. triggered a rally by beleaguered bank stocks. Earnings reports and comments by top executives of the two big U.S. banks included a slew of troubles -- more souring mortgages, write-downs of toxic securities and economic gloom -- but no particularly nasty new surprises for shareholders who have been pummeled by the credit crunch since summer. It was almost as if Wachovia Corp. hadn't rattled Wall Street two days...

Quasi-fiscal scoundrels 4: helping banks When I hear or read the words ‘off-balance-sheet financing’ or ’special purpose vehicle’, warning lights begin to flash and I grab for my obfuscatometer. Off-balance-sheet financing is any form of funding that avoids placing the owners’ equity, liabilities or assets on the balance sheet of a firm or other legal entity. The most common way to achieve this is by placing those items on some other entity’s balance sheet. A standard approach is to create a special purpose vehicle (SPV) and place assets and liabilities on its balance sheet. An SPV is a firm or...

IT was the nation’s lending institutions and mortgage originators that got us into this credit mess, but it is consumers, taxpayers and those companies’ shareholders who will end up shouldering most of the costs. The latest example of this is in the mass freezing of home equity lines of credit going on across the country. Reeling from losses on their wretched loan decisions of recent years, lenders are preventing borrowers with pristine credit and significant equity in their homes from tapping into credit lines that they paid dearly to secure. In the last 30 days, lenders have sent several hundred...

Cambridge University has been given £8 million by a Saudi Arabian prince to establish an Islamic studies centre. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, ranked in the top 20 richest men in the world, with a fortune of about £10 billion, has donated the cash to the university to fund a centre in his name for the study of the role of Islam in the Middle East and globally. The gift has been recommended by the university's general board and is expected to be announced in June. advertisement The grandson of King Ibn Saud and nephew of King Abudllah, the prince counts...

Treasury Warns Of Deception By Iran Treasury Warns Banks That Iran Is Engaging In Deceptive Practices To Skirt Sanctions WASHINGTON, Mar. 27, 2008 (AP) The Bush administration issued a fresh warning Thursday to U.S. banks that Iran is using "an array of deceptive practices" to hide its alleged involvement in nuclear proliferation and terrorist activities. The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network alleged that Iran is resorting to such alleged practices to evade detection and skirt financial sanctions. "The government of Iran disguises its involvement in proliferation and terrorism activities through an array of deceptive practices specifically designed to evade...

Bank of America Corp (BAC.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the largest U.S. retail bank, may set aside a record $6.5 billion in the first quarter to cover possible future loan losses, including in its mortgage and home equity portfolios, according to a banking analyst. Richard Bove of Punk Ziegel & Co also slashed his earnings forecasts for the bank through 2010, though he still expects a first-quarter profit. He said actual losses in the portfolios should be "somewhat less" than the amount he expects set aside, suggesting the bank would be conservative in its forecast of future credit trends. "I do...

Firms under scrutiny regarding certain bidding practices Antitrust and securities regulators are considering charges against a handful of large banks, bond insurers and some of their employees as part of an investigation into certain municipal-bond investments. Bank of America, UBS AG and bond insurer Financial Security Assurance Holdings Ltd. last month received notices from the Securities and Exchange Commission indicating civil enforcement action may be taken against them for potentially violating federal securities laws about bidding practices on contracts that manage municipal funds. The "Wells notices" sent by the SEC, which the companies disclosed in regulatory filings, also give the...

The Bank of Canada has cut its key overnight rate by half a percentage point. The rate falls to 3.5 per cent from four per cent. The last announcement on the rate came on Jan. 22. The central bank cut the rate by a quarter-point, or 25 basis points, at that time. The bank feels domestic demand remains strong but there are risks to the economy, mainly from the slowdown in the United States, BNN's Michael Kane told Newsnet on Tuesday. In a news release, the bank noted that net exports fell in the fourth quarter, a development driven by...

Bangladesh bank offers loans to US poor By Daniel Pimlott in New York Published: February 15 2008 Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank has made its first loans in New York in an attempt to bring its pioneering microfinance techniques to the tens of millions of people in the world’s richest country who have no bank account. The bank’s entry into the US, its first in a developed market, comes as mainstream banks’ credibility has been hit by the mortgage meltdown and many people are turning to fringe financial institutions offering loans at exorbitant interest rates.

On December 19, 2007, a U.S.-based law firm succeeded in freezing the funds of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) in France on behalf of American clients who, in the judgment of U.S. courts, were victims of terrorist attacks sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Iran has been using its state institutions as agents of the terror activity it perpetrates throughout the world. The funding for this terror activity is partly provided via Bank Melli and sometimes also via Bank Saderat. Bank Melli also played a pivotal role in financing the 1994 AMIA bombing in Argentina. AMIA was...

Banks advised to walk away from big deals By Henny Sender in New York Published: February 14 2008 22:03 | Last updated: February 14 2008 22:03 Leading banks are being advised that it would be cheaper to walk away from big buy-out deals than incur further losses on their funding commitments, increasing the chances that more high-profile private equity transactions will collapse. This advice from lawyers contrasts with the conventional wisdom that banks would risk serious damage to their reputations if they were to drop out of deals. But legal advisers argue that the break-up fees banks would owe in...

British Internet bank Egg said Saturday it is terminating about 160,000 customers' credit card agreements, saying their credit profiles had deteriorated. A British lawmaker called the move unfair, and said Egg's decision should be investigated. Egg Banking PLC was bought by Citigroup Inc. last year, and the company said the move was the result of a "one-off, extensive risk review of our book" after the acquisition. The figure represents about 7 percent of Egg's credit card customers. "Egg has given a number of its credit-card customers 35 days' notice that it is ending their card agreements," the bank said in...

A billionaire ally of President George Bush could face a criminal investigation into insider share dealing after selling £100million of shares just days before Societe Generale's rogue-trader losses were reported. Robert Day, a member of the French bank's board, disposed of a million shares on January 9 and 10, plus a further 500,000 on January 18, according to official disclosures to Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF), France's market regulator. The £3.7billion losses at the bank were not disclosed to the public or investors until January 24, despite reports that Societe Generale bosses were aware of the crisis several days earlier....

Chinese bank gets approval to buy into SAfrican bank in US$5.46 billion deal By SCOTT McDONALD,Associated Press Writer AP - Monday, February 4 BEIJING - China's biggest bank said Sunday it has received approval to buy a 20 percent stake in South Africa's biggest lender, the latest big-ticket overseas expansion by Chinese investors. ADVERTISEMENT The deal between state-owned Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. and Standard Bank Group Ltd. is one of China's biggest foreign corporate acquisitions to date. "The Chinese Banking Regulatory Commission has approved the plan by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China to take the...

It seems only yesterday that Premier Dalton McGuinty declared: "There will be no sharia law in Ontario." Many of us, who witnessed the medieval nature of manmade sharia laws in our countries of birth, heaved a sigh of relief back in September of 2005. We thought this was the end of the attempt by Islamists to sneak sharia into a Western jurisdiction. We were wrong. The campaign to introduce sharia is back. Last time, the campaign took a populist approach, invoking multiculturalism. This time, the pro-sharia lobby is dangling the carrot of new niche markets and has the backing of...

French bank finds $7.14 billion fraud By EMMA VANDORE, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago French bank Societe Generale has uncovered a $7.14 billion fraud that, combined with a write-down from its subprime exposure, will force it to seek $8.02 billion in new capital, the bank said. France's second-largest bank by market value after BNP Paribas SA said it detected the fraud at its French markets division the weekend of Jan. 19. A trader at the futures desk had taken "massive fraudulent directional positions in 2007 and 2008 beyond his limited authority," SocGen said. The trader, who was not named,...

The first mortgage foreclosure on my block, a couple of years ago, didn't seem like it was part of the current housing crisis. A young family moved in — husband, wife and child. Although they were new, they became active with neighbors on the block. Their son played with other kids. Within a few months of their moving in, Mom gave birth to twins. It was a celebratory occasion for block club members. But shortly, things went bad. After some months of the usual agony and loathing, they divorced. The property settlement left Dad with the house and a mortgage...

London, Jan. 05 - Iran's Bank Saderat has lost a third of its foreign partners because of unilateral sanctions by the United States, the Financial Times quoted the institution’s managing director as saying on Saturday. In an interview with the Financial Times, Hamid Borhani said that of 600 foreign banks that used to do business with Bank Saderat before the U.S. imposed sanctions in September 2006, some 200 had halted their transactions. Borhani said that Middle Eastern banks were continuing contacts and becoming the institution’s top foreign partners, as sanctions shifted trade from west to east. China became Iran’s main...

Thousands of Britons' bank details are available for sale across the Internet, exposing people to the risk of fraud, it was revealed today. An immediate investigation has been launched after more than 100 websites offering to sell UK bank details, including account numbers, PINs and security codes, were discovered. The Information Commissioner was forced to act after the Times newspaper revealed it had been able to download banking information for 32 individuals, including a High Court Judge, for free as part of their own investigation. One fraudster was offering to sell 30,000 British credit card numbers for £1 each, the...

The Dubai government, whose purchase of six American ports sparked a political furor, is poised to acquire substantial stakes in Citigroup and other New York-based banks mired in subprime mortgage debt. Omar bin Sulaiman, the governor of the Dubai government's investment arm, DIFC Investments, is currently on a spending spree, spurred by the bargains that have resulted from the low value of the dollar and the sinking of the stock markets caused by the subprime mortgage crisis. Last year, Dubai caused a political storm in America when its Dubai Ports World company acquired six major American ports as part of...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Already bleeding red, the nation's second-largest bank is now passing out pink slips. Bank of America says it will eliminate 3,000 jobs, most of them from its investment banking unit.

With China's National Day holidays out of the way, students in Taizhou, Jiangsu, are returning to their voluntary duties of collecting genetic data from the city's willing citizens. Volunteers and sample donors will contribute to what project organisers claim could become the world's largest genetic databank. Launched in June, it already holds samples from 10,000 people, only a minute proportion of the five million it aims to accumulate over the next decade. "This project will improve Taizhou in every respect, whilst also contributing to the development of China," declares Wang Jingsu, deputy director of Chinese Medical City (CMC), a quasi-governmental...

CONFESSION IN SLAYINGS Warrant for car leads to suspect By DAVID GAMBACORTA, DANA DiFILIPPO & JENNA OSKOWITZ gambacd@phillynews.com 215-854-5994 A fugitive who previously served federal prison time for bank robberies confessed last night to slaying two retired Philly cops. The stunning development came just a day after William Widmaier and Joseph Alullo - lifelong friends who found a second career as armored truck guards - were gunned down and robbed as they serviced an ATM in Northeast Philadelphia. The alleged confessed killer, according to police sources, has been identified as Mustafa Ali. He was arrested on an outstanding warrant from...

STAY calm, don’t panic. The Northern Rock bank is not bust even though it has had to be propped up by the Bank of England -so say the government and City bigwigs, writes Richard Woods. But as millions of people digested these messages late last week, a deadly logic took hold. If everything was fine, then what was wrong with nipping down to the nearest Northern Rock branch and removing deposits to some other, perhaps safer, bank? Queues swiftly formed outside branches, and yesterday they were even longer than the day before. In Leeds more than 300 people queued at...

Northern Rock customers withdraw £1bn By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 10:13pm BST 14/09/2007 About £1 billion was withdrawn by panicking Northern Rock customers on Friday, as fears for the bank's future sent shock waves through the City and caused its shares to crash. The company's phone lines were jammed for most of the day, its website crashed and the 72 branches were besieged by thousands of worried customers after it admitted having to ask the Bank of England for emergency funding. The scenes came as the financial turmoil that has engulfed the money markets in the past...

Northern Rock customers queue for cash as crisis hits high street By Emma Thelwell Last Updated: 3:01pm BST 14/09/2007 The credit crisis spilled onto Britain's high streets today as worried Northern Rock customers queued up to withdraw their savings. Their fears were prompted by the revelation this morning that Britain's fifth-biggest mortgage lender had to ask the Bank of England for emergency financial assistance. Tony Looch: 'I'm taking the lot out' Despite Northern Rock's assurances that there was no need for customers to panic, queues continued to build steadily at the London branches visited by the Daily Telegraph today. For...

In one of the highest-profile instances of a central bank coming directly to the rescue of a commercial bank in the current credit crisis, the Bank of England agreed to provide emergency funding to Northern Rock PLC, the United Kingdom's fourth-largest mortgage lender. Northern Rock shares plunged at the opening of the trading session, falling 21% after the lender confirmed it will get a short-term credit line to offset a "severe liquidity squeeze" that cut off its access to capital. (See related article.) If current conditions persist through year-end, "there will clearly be an impact on Northern Rock's 2007 asset...

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — A man robbing a bank demanded the money by writing a note on one of his own checks, authorities say. Not surprisingly, he was caught soon afterward. Forest Kelly Bissonnette, 27, apparently tried to cover his name on the check, then handed the note to a teller Sept. 5 at the Bank of the West in Englewood, according to authorities. "We could still make it out even though he blacked it out," FBI agent Rene VonderHaar said. Nearly $5,000 was taken. Surveillance video showed a suspect similar to Bissonnette's description, and a tipster said a man named...

"The rich are different from you and me," wrote Fitzgerald and I suppose they are, but the differences – they wax and wane with the economic tides. Gilded ages come, go, and are reborn on the monsoon cloudbursts of seemingly intangible forces such as globalization, innovation, and favorable tax policy. For the rich to be truly rich and multiply their numbers, they need help. Adept surfers they may be, but like all riders, the wealthy need a seventh wave that allows them to preen their skills and declare themselves masters of their own universe, if only for a moment in...

Santander Traded with Blacklist Iranian Bank July 23, 2007 Telegraph Katherine Griffiths Santander, one of Europe's biggest banks, has been trading with an Iranian bank that is blacklisted by the US for allegedly financing nuclear proliferation. Santander, Spain's largest bank and the owner of Abbey in the UK, was doing business with Teheran-based Sepah as recently as March, The Daily Telegraph can reveal. Trading with businesses that are blacklisted for alleged links to terrorism is a serious breach of US law and can have draconian consequences. A spokesman for the US treasury department said: "Violations of US sanctions programmes may...

uly 10, 2007 Sarkozy outflanks Britain over IMF chief appointment Nicolas Sarkozy, left, with Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2006. The IMF appointment would secure another French chief in an international top job and remove a political rival for the French President on one stroke (Stephane De Sakutin/AFP/Getty) Nicolas Sarkozy, left, with Dominique Strauss-Kahn in 2006. The IMF appointment would secure another French chief in an international top job and remove a political rival for the French President on one stroke Rory Watson, Brussels The British Government was comprehensively outmanoeuvred today when President Nicolas Sarkozy succeeded in placing Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former...

The day of reckoning has arrived for a debt-soaked nation living for too long on easy credit. And it's going to hurt Last week in Cardiff, a mild-mannered man called Mervyn stood up, pushed back his glasses and stated the obvious: "It is unwise to borrow so much that the repayments are affordable only if interest rates remain at their initial levels." Sensible, if unremarkable advice, one might think, from a governor of the Bank of England known for his conservatism. But Mr King's warning to the Welsh CBI marks the end of a decadent decade in British history when...

Could a hole in the ground be the clue to solving a 40-year-old bank robbery? Some people in Central Utah believe it is. It looks like the hole is a tunnel, used by the robbers to get inside the bank. It happened, in the 1960s, in the Central Utah town of Monroe. It's been a long time since the robbery, so there are a lot of stories, rumors and legends around town, so it is hard to separate fact from fiction. What is certain is that the robbery was never solved, and now this discovery may finally answer at least...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paul Wolfowitz made an emotional appeal to stay on as World Bank president in a last pitch before the bank's board decides whether he has the credibility to lead the poverty-fighting institution. The U.S. government failed to rally support among its key allies for a strategy aimed at saving Wolfowitz his job, even as a bank panel found that he violated ethics rules. Wolfowitz remained defiant as he appeared before the 24-nation board, which will resume a meeting on Wednesday to decide his fate in a scandal over a pay and promotion deal he approved in 2005...

BESSEMER, Alabama: A gunman fatally shot two bank employees during a robbery Monday morning at a Wachovia bank branch in Alabama, authorities said. Deputies later shot one suspect as he left the bank with a gun held to a female hostage's head, and they were searching for a possible second suspect, a sheriff's spokesman told The Birmingham News. The spokesman said two other employees were shot and wounded.

A drunk German horse rider rode into a bank foyer to sleep for the night, after having one too many for the road during a stopover at his local beergarden. Wolfgang Heinrich, 40, from the German town Wiesenburg, had been riding with his Haflinger horse Sammy when he stopped to have a drink with friends. But when he left the pub he realised he was too drunk to ride all the way home - and because it was cold, he decided to use his bank card to open up a nearby bank foyer and take himself and Sammy inside to...

BERLIN (AP) - An early-morning German bank customer had a bit of a shock when he found a horse already in line at the automatic teller machine in front of him. It seems the horse's owner, identified only as Wolfgang H., had a bit too much to drink the night before and decided to sleep it off inside the bank's heated foyer, police said Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is dropping its bid to establish a bank after months of heated debate over whether the world's largest retailer should be allowed to gain the added financial power of a federally insured bank. Wal-Mart announced Friday that it was withdrawing its application for a bank charter, which aroused widespread opposition from banks, lawmakers and consumer groups, and spurred debate within Congress and before the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The FDIC was considering Wal-Mart's application to establish an industrial loan corporation, which is a limited-purpose bank for processing credit card and other payments.

An armed blagger who was surrounded by cops in an Austrian bank filled an idle five hours before his arrest by offering phone customers loans, Ananova reports. According to Austrian police, Guenther Baum "stormed into the Bawag bank on the main shopping street in Vienna waving a gun". His choice of target, however, proved ill-advised, since the bank was "next door to the country's special forces headquarters and a police station". Duly surrounded, Baum made his way to the building's first floor with three staff and a customer as hostages, and then rather agreeably "started taking calls from customers offering...

Female duo, bank teller nabbed after surveillance photos see light MARCH 1--Police tonight arrested two young women, a bank teller, and a fourth accomplice in connection with Tuesday's robbery of a Bank of America branch in Acworth, Georgia.....

Zimbabwe bank chief attacks land grab Last Updated: 2:17am GMT 01/03/2007 One of the most powerful figures in Zimbabwe has issued a damning indictment of President Robert Mugabe's policies by publicly criticising the actions of the people allocated land seized from white owners. Gideon Gono, the governor of the central reserve bank, appeared to acknowledge that his nation had been shattered by Mr Mugabe's "land reform programme". According to the state-owned Herald newspaper, Mr Gono also acknowledged that the lack of food production had led to food imports gobbling up foreign currency reserves desperately needed for fuel and spare parts...

Embattled Zimbabwe hungry and broke, says central bank head The Associated PressPublished: February 28, 2007 HARARE, Zimbabwe: Dozens of people were arrested Wednesday as pro-democracy activists defied a police ban on demonstrations and took to the streets to protest growing economic hardship and repression in Zimbabwe. The National Constitutional Assembly said many of those arrested were assaulted. It vowed to continue with the demonstrations. "We believe that demonstrating for a new constitution is a genuine cause that cannot be blocked by a corrupt police force whose mandate is merely that of protecting a failed regime," the movement said in a...

Credit card aimed at illegal immigrants Bank of America’s card for those with no Social Security number, credit NEW YORK - Bank of America Corp. has begun offering credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers, typically illegal immigrants, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. In recent years, banks across the country have been offering checking accounts and even mortgages to the nation’s fast-growing ranks of undocumented immigrants, most of whom are Hispanic, the paper said, adding these immigrants generally have not been able to get major credit cards. The new Bank of America card is open to people...

I was trying to contact the branch office of a nearby financial institution. I went to their web page, saw a link for a page on the locations, and saw information for the branch I was seeking. To my surprise, no phone number was listed, only driving directions. I eventually did call the branch, but had to go through the main number of the institution, and the operator put me through. If I were in charge of the web site, I would have put the local number of the branch. Or, if I wanted to funnel all calls through the...